Hi everyone. As Tom reported, we are back in Kathmandu and are enjoying the cushy life of real mattresses with sheets, hot showers and TOILET PAPER! Woohoo! My last night at the Dancing Yak in Jomsom, Jane and Jenna demanded that I only use 3 (single-ply) sheets of our shared toilet paper (You have to supply your own). Don't tell, but I used 5! (haha)
I am closer to getting back home where I want to be, but I desperately miss the rest of our crew and feel just a little twinge of jealousy that they are going into upper Mustang. Only a few permits per year are given to those who want to go into that region where it is even more untouched by change than the places we have visited.
I came here fully expecting to land into this totally foreign world, where nobody looks like me, talks like me, dresses or thinks like me, and everthing around me looks nothing like I have ever seen before. Part of that has proved to be true. I have never seen the likes of chaos like here in Kathmandu. I have never seen this much poverty. I have never seen landscapes like this, from the terraced crop fields to the gigantic mountains that are so huge, grey and snow-covered, that they cannot be real even though you are right there staring at them.
And it is true that the people here don't look or talk like me. But somehow I have found many familiar things here. I've watched Karma (Tsampa's wife) churn butter just like my Granny Surratt used to do. I watched twelve Tibetan women sit in a circle on the floor and string a basket of green beans, which reminded me of sitting under the tree between my parents house and Aunt Mavis' house, doing the same thing. I've watched men ride and work their horses. (Grandpa Webb) These people work hard every day with almost nothing to show for it materialistically. And they all seem happy. It reminds me of what life must have been like for my parents and grandparents growing up.
The women here offer you tea several times a day. They ask if you are hungry. As we walked these very long, dusty and rocky trails between villages, every person we would meet, whether they were in a group or carrying some obscenely large basket full of who-knows-what strapped to their heads, EVERY single person would meet your eye and say, "Namaste". Greeted warmly by every stranger you meet, that's Nepal.
Tonight we are again invited to our friend Sunil's house for dinner. I hope his wife Sarita doesn't cook as much as she did the last time....
Mary and Ella, I will see you soon. Save hugs and kisses for me.
Love to everyone,
Reba